Google Spreadsheets Tip: Quick Sort and Quick Sum

The office application UI is a very mature interface; one that has undergone many years of improvement, testing and innovation to reach the point right now where you can hardly create an interface that is radically different from the rest of other office apps. This is true even for the web office apps that we have right now, despite the web offering a different set of user interface rules (the web native interface, as what Google calls it).

Innovations still happen though, and perhaps this is the point where these innovations will really matter, because they create opportunities for your product to differentiate and rise above the others. Although not really game-changing, even small innovations in the office UI can go great lengths in making your users happy and productive.

Google just introduced a very cool and innovative tool to its Spreadsheets web application, along with another feature addition. The former is a new tool for quickly freezing and sorting the spreadsheet, and the latter is a quick way to get some formula results (sum, average, etc) from a current number set.

The Sortbar
This is a new tool that you will see as a horizontal bar in your spreadsheet, initially placed between the first and second row of your spreadsheet.

This bar does two functions really quick and easy: organize and sort your spreadsheet quickly using the sortbar under each column, or freeze rows that you always want to keep (and see) on top, such as headers.

To sort a column, hover your mouse on the gray sort bar fort that column until the color changes to orange and the sort bar control appears. Single click on the bar to toggle sorting from ascending (A->Z) and descending (Z->A). You can also click on the arrow to quickly select the specific type of sort. Note how the arrow in the sort bar changes to reflect your current sort selection.

When you drag the sort bar anywhere from row 1 to 11, the rows above it will not be sorted, but will be “frozen” or always visible to the users.

The Quick Sum
Google also added a quick sum feature to Spreadsheets. Simply select a set of cells with numbers,

then its sum will be shown on the right side of the status bar at the bottom.

Here’s an extra tip: if you click on the quick sum (without loosing your selection of the cells), Spreadsheets will provide you with more quick information such as average, count, minimum and maximum.